John Stevens' Courtship

The party were toiling up the long and steep grade to the north of the village of Lehi, and John was out of the wagon, walking beside his team, whistling occasionally to his horses, and sometimes coming up to the wagon to hear the merry chatter of his companion. He had allowed himself to get some distance behind his team when he saw, in a sudden turn of the road, a small party of horsemen coming towards them, and as the dust cleared away, he discovered they were soldiers. He tried to hurry up so that he might be near or reach Ellen before they passed her, for instinct warned him that there was need, yet it was too late. As they passed him, he gazed at the dashing captain – for it was Captain Sherwood, his own despised enemy – to whom he gave a look of hate and repugnance. It was returned with a flash of sneering triumph.

The gay captain had cause to be triumphant.

As he passed by the long train of wagons, his eyes were eagerly searching each wagon for the two faces he had come out purposely to see. He hardly knew Diantha. He had seen her but once, and now the gold of her hair was a tawny clay, and the tiny curls were stiff with dust; while the enchanting pink and white of her skin was lost in a deep, sun-flushed crimson, covered over with the dun dust of the valley road.

As soon as he recognized her, however, and that only as they met face to face, he raised his cap with a courtly bow.

Whether Diantha was a little afraid of her brother's instant anger, or whether she was moved by her own sense of right and propriety, or whether there was mingled with it all an indignation that she had not been recognized because of her unprepossessing appearance, she herself never tried to fathom; but certain it was that my lady stiffened herself into an attitude of freezing hauteur, visible through all her dusty disguises, and with a stony stare of her gleaming blue eyes, she coldly looked into the laughing black eyes bent upon her, and gave the soldier the cut direct.

"I say, old chap, that young lady would give pointers to a New Orleans belle in giving a fellow his conge, but I should say she was not bad-looking when properly dressed." So spake a fellow officer as the two rode at the head of their squad. Captain Sherwood had urged his superior officer, Col. Saxey, to come along, as he had learned that this party were on the road, and he wanted his friend to see the two girls who had so taken his own fancy.

Ellen saw them coming, and first looking discreetly back to see that John was well out of sight, she gave the captain a laughing and apologetic smile, and then turned her head coquettishly aside, as the horsemen dashed by.

"That girl is as pretty as the other, only in a different way," said Col. Saxey. "But I would advise you, Sherwood, to let these women alone. You will make yourself and others a great deal of unnecessary trouble, and I can't see that it will do you or anyone else any good."

"Oh, d – n your advice, Saxey. What is life, anyway?"

"Life," answered Col. Saxey to his friend Sherwood, "is pretty much what we make it; good, bad or indifferent. But, really, Sherwood, I wish you would take an old friend's advice, and let those 'Mormon' women alone. You know these people are nearly wild with fear anyway, and I think it the height of folly for us to add to their discomfiture."

"I can't imagine how I am going to hurt anybody by falling in love with a pretty girl, and even marrying her, if worst comes to worst."

"You know quite well, old fellow, you would never dream of marrying one of these uneducated, uncultured western girls; and when you remember that she is of 'Mormon' stock; what an absurdity! Why, what do you think your proud family down in Louisiana would say to such a thing? Give it up, Clem; give it up."

"Say, Saxey," and the young officer turned and faced his companion, reining in his horse to a halt that he might look the other fairly in the eyes, "I want you to tell me what you and I or any of the rest of our fellows are going to do out here, thousands of miles from home and civilization? I say, what are we going to do? I certainly need the love and tenderness of a dear little woman, such as one of these girls."

"I am more than surprised, Clem, to hear you speak so coolly of the ruin of a good, innocent girl. What can possess you?"

"What can possess you, my virtuous friend? Where have you learned your lessons of life, if not in the school of experience? I must be in love with somebody, and lucky it is for me that I have such delightful material to waste a bit of my time and heart's affection upon. You see that I am refined enough to wish even my bacon to be of the choicest cut, and fricasseed to the most delicate brown, instead of fried in huge slices and served with chunks of bread."

They were riding slowly on through the dust and heat, and the elder officer turned and looked keenly into the face of handsome Captain Sherwood, who was stroking his small black mustache, and smiling at his inward fancies.

"Sherwood," he said, at last, "I must confess that I have never in my life realized the full meaning of all you imply until this hour. Men allow themselves to float down the current of custom and do and say many things which are, it seems to me, in my present mood, unmanly as well as impure. True, men of the world have always done the same things, and rarely stop to ask questions in regard to the matter; but – well, in fact, things look a little different now."

"What has changed the current of your opinion, my wise friend?"

"Something in the face of that haughty girl, as she looked her disdain to you, and the look of fierce hatred which that tall, red-bearded fellow gave you as he passed you, have set me to thinking. Maybe we are as guilty of crime in hunting out these people as were the Roman soldiers when they burned the Christians at the stake."

Sherwood gazed with more and more astonishment at the words of his friend, and at the close of the little, conscience-stricken speech, he burst into a hearty peal of laughter, and again and again he laughed as he recalled the absurdity of such a comparison.

"You must excuse me, old boy, but it is too utterly funny for words. These adulterous, ignorant, impudent 'Mormons' to be compared to the ancient Christians? Ha, ha, ha!"

The elder man winced a little under the fire of ridicule, but his own sense of right and honor told him his position was the true one, and he felt stealing over him a contempt and repugnance for the man who could so recklessly plan the destruction of innocent, helpless womanhood.

The soldiers reached the outskirts of their own camp late that afternoon, and as Col. Saxey gazed at the crowded hive of huts and tents, filled with men, a few women, and many squaws, which composed the nondescript village just across the stream from Camp Floyd, he felt a sense of horror and dislike for all that this motley crowd signified, which he had never before felt, and which was as surprising as it was new to him.

Camp Floyd had been laid out with the care and skill which characterized all the labors of General Johnston. At the hillside lay the officers' quarters, while down the river a little lower were stationed the quarters of the men, with the parade ground between. All the tents had been pitched on a low three-foot adobe foundation, thus giving some measure of comfort to their temporary structures. Outside the camp, and across the bridge which spanned the small mountain stream, was a collection of rude log huts, one or two small adobe houses, and a great many tents of all sizes, all pitched on the low adobe walls. Here were gathered the usual camp followers, those who did the store-keeping, the washing, the ironing, the makers and vendors of every commodity bought and sold in the camp. In this place all grades of camp-followers were sheltered.

Men were there, some few decent and eager only for the labor and exchange of money for that labor which came to them; others willing to buy and sell anything on earth which could be traded off. The most of them were drunken, carousing, miserable wretches, possessed of no impulse but that of a selfish and sensual gratification. Here a coarse woman, with a flaunting air and a ribald jest, passed through the throng, and there a squaw sat beside the road, her eyes red with the whisky she had sold herself for, and her face horrible with the soulless leer of savage, half-drunken invitation.

A wave of horror passed over the sensitive face of Col. Saxey as this accustomed scene appeared to him for the first time in its true colors. He almost hated himself that he was a man. Sherwood noticed nothing unusual, and as they passed a woman with a red scarf across her shoulder, he tossed her a coin, as he said lightly:

"There is enough for two drunks, Liz, and don't try to run them both into one, either; for the last time you did that, you raised such a row that the Colonel threatened to have the whole place cleaned out."

Louisiana Liz, as she was called, screamed back her thanks, and with her large, dark, but bleared and blood-shot eyes she flashed up at the young man her most fascinating gaze.

Arrived at their own quarters, the officers were met by an orderly, who instructed them to report at headquarters that evening.

"I particularly request you gentlemen," said General Johnston, when they reported at his tent, "not so much in a military capacity, as in the name of decency and honor, to remain as much as possible in your own quarters, and to keep away from these 'Mormon' villages. As for the men, I wish you to deal severely with any of them who go far from camp; in fact I wish all to be done that can be done to keep down unnecessary excitement. You understand, gentlemen?"

"I wonder if the gallant general imagines," said Sherwood, as they walked away from the general's tent, "that any one is going to obey strictly his orders and requests. Why," said he, as the two were returning to their own tents, "he is either very simple or else very tame if he expects either officers or men are to be entirely restricted in making some sport out of this dead, dreary and absurd campaign."

"I think the general is entirely right, Sherwood, and so far as I am concerned, I shall do what I can to carry out his orders; even to reporting delinquents, officers as well as men," he added significantly, as he gave a quick glance at his companion.

"Oh, well, 'catching comes before hanging,' is a true if a vulgar proverb, so I bid you a pleasant good-night."

As Captain Sherwood turned into his own tent, he was surprised to find a figure dimly outlined by the sputtering tallow candle, crouching near his bunk.

"What on earth are you doing here, Liz? Don't you know it would mean severe punishment to you and disgrace to me, if you were found inside these lines?"

The half-breed Creole laughed with a low, sneering sound and answered softly:

"Do you think I have forgotten all the lessons of my youth, learned in the silent swamps of our early Louisiana home? Fear not, the snake herself is not more silent, nor the night-bird more swift in her flight than I. Fear not!" And she laughed again, with a quiet, mirthless chuckle.

XXVII

CHRISTMAS EVE, 1858

The days and weeks of the dry, brilliant summer and autumn flew along with dusty, burnished wings. For some time the efforts of the commanding officer at Camp Floyd were measurably successful in restraining undue intercourse between his men and the people of the neighboring settlements.

In the city of Great Salt Lake the affairs of the people went on with much the same regularity and soberness that had always characterized them. Yet, underneath every act and word, one could feel the current of silent expectation and preparation among this hunted people; expectation of anything sudden and vicious which the army of Utah might attempt to do; and a consequent preparation for defense and perhaps war. There was a small reign of terror, at times, rampant in those whilom silent city streets. While the officers might hold their own men in check, they exercised no authority over the crowd of vile camp-followers which sometimes swept up and over those city thoroughfares with a terrifying cloud of debauchery and crime.

President Young was threatened continually in divers ways; by anonymous letters; by wild and erratic apostates; and he knew through reports of authorized agents that no effort would be spared by the district judges or the military force to put his freedom and his life in jeopardy. Around him, therefore, was gathered a trusty band of his bravest and best friends; and among them was found our good friend, John Stevens. His watch at the President's office came at night, and he was therefore prevented from attending many of the parties and balls which still went on in every part of the city. Brigham Young knew his people too well to allow other and less innocent occupations to usurp the place of the dance and amateur theater.

On Christmas eve, 1858, there was to be a magnificent ball given in the fine, new Social Hall. Oh, the blessed memories clinging around that dear old hall! What scenes of enjoyment, and frolic, sweet and pure, have been celebrated within its gray walls! What hearts have met their fate, what lips have spoken the words of love eternal, while mingling in the happy dance – old and young, rich and poor! No class distinctions ever marred the festivities of that generous place! No separation of old folks from the young ever jarred upon the spirit of mutual love and confidence which marked the social intercourse of the Saints. And what wonderful plays were enacted by that remarkable company of players, headed by Hiram Clawson, John T. Caine, James Ferguson and Mrs. Wheelock and Mrs. Gibson! Dear are these precious memories to the children of the pioneers; for within these walls they learned, through definite object lessons, that religion was not merely a Sabbath affair, put on as a cloak! Ah, no; it entered into the very center of pulsating life and emotion, and was a living entity in the innocent, religious pleasures, as well as the simple, trustful sorrows of this blessed people!

"I am going to bring my dress over to your house, Dian," said Ellen Tyler, early that Christmas eve, "and get ready with you, for I want you to fix my hair; you have such lovely taste. I never look so well as when you arrange my hair and dress. And then I can get the use of your looking-glass, too."

Ellen did look lovely. She had a new pink print dress, and print dresses in those days were as superior to the common calicoes of today, as are the prices of today less than were those early standards of values. The skirt was made with dainty, flying ruffles, nearly to the waist, and edged with the prettiest of hand-crocheted lace; while the waist, full and gathered into the belt, was fitted with billowy sleeves of bishop shape. At the belt and near the left shoulder were flying bows of pink ribbon; while peeping behind the right ear, a tiny bow of pink made the chestnut brown hair richer for its suggestive contrast.

"Ellie, dear, you look just like one of Aunt Clara's spice pinks! I never saw you look so lovely. I could hug you myself for very admiration."

Dian stood afar off from her friend admiring her, and approaching Ellen at last, she bestowed upon the soft, pale cheek, a small pinch, to give the delicate tint needed to complete the exquisite picture.

"Well, it's no use telling you how you look, Dian, for I am sure you know it so well yourself; the fact of your own magnificent charm is so apparent that it is nonsense for anyone to try and flatter you."

"Are you making fun of me, Ellie?" queried Diantha, as she turned around from the tiny looking-glass to ask her question. "I know well enough that I have a passably good form, and that I do have some taste in dressing myself; but I hate these ugly red cheeks, and would give anything in this world for your clear, pale complexion."

The girl looked with a positive gleam of anger in her flashing blue eyes at the image of herself reflected in the glass, and muttered as she pretended to pinch her own rose-tinted cheeks: "Oh, you ugly, scarlet things, how I hate you!"

"It makes me unhappy, Dian, to hear you call yourself ugly. You know God has blessed you with rare gifts of face and form, and you ought not to speak as you do, let alone feeling so wicked about your red cheeks. They are lovely to me. They always make me feel as if I would like to take a bite out of them, as I would from a red June apple."

Dian was almost in tears now, at such a homely, unpoetic comparison, and her friend hastened to change the conversation.

"Say, Dian, do you think John Stevens can get off tonight to come down to the ball? I feel as if half of my fun would be gone without him."

"Oh, I don't know, I am sure. I haven't seen John for weeks. He is up at the President's office night and day, I guess."

"Well, I will have to content myself with Tom Allen, or Brother Leon, I guess, for I must have some fun with somebody. I am just wild for a frolic. I can hardly wait for Tom to come, I want so much to get to the party."

The girl was indeed full of the vitality of youth and health, and her pulse danced and tingled with expectant pleasure. She was young, lovely and loving, and she longed for love and admiration. Who could blame her?

XXVIII

THE BALL IN THE SOCIAL HALL

Arrived at the hall, the girls left their escorts at the door, and hurried into the crowded dressing room under the stage. What hand-shakings and laughing exchange of greetings they found there! What merry peals of gentle laughter! What garrulous exchanges of confidences as to the causes and effects of the day's labors and pleasures, were buzzing in the two low-ceiled, square dressing rooms that happy night!

Up from the basement came the fragrant odor of baking meats, and delicious pastry. A small army of cooks was busy preparing the elaborate supper; for this was one of the good old-time parties, for which the tickets cost five dollars in scrip or produce, or less in cash; and the guests came at early dusk, and after dancing for three or four hours, were served at the loaded tables in the basement, with the luxuries and delicacies of mountain food and mountain cooking; after eating heartily of the supper, all were ready then for the dance to be renewed until the early morning hours; at any time, however, the merry-makers were glad to cease from the gay quadrilles, and listen to the wise counsel or appropriate remarks made, perchance, by the Presidency of the Church or other good speakers, who were ever the merriest and best dancers in the room. At these innocent revelries also, there was a grateful lack of unholy passions and impure thoughts and words begotten by the too frequent round dancing of novel-reading youths.

"Did you ever, in your life, see Diantha and Ellie look so pretty?" asked more than one unselfish mother, as the two girls came up the little stairway from the dressing room, into the main hall, followed by their cavaliers.

Diantha was entrancing in her simple, straight-skirted, pale-blue slip – for she scorned the balloon-like hoops of the day – with no ornament save the pale gold masses of her luminous hair, and the rich pink and white of her unappreciated but glorious complexion. She herself disliked her chief charm, the warm, rich coloring, which gave so much glowing life and fascinating vitality to the otherwise somewhat cold expression and haughty air.

Both the girls danced with the lightest grace and the keenest enjoyment, and each was besieged with partners, for both were recognized belles in their own circle. Ellen Tyler watched and waited in vain for the appearance of her beloved friend, John Stevens. She had never heard a word of love from his lips; indeed, she had never given him direct encouragement to offer such words; but she knew that, with a little insistence on his part, she could pour out to him the wealth of her young heart. And with all her swarm of admirers, she was unsatisfied, and yearning for the love that had never been offered her. Yet she was too sweet and womanly to think for a moment of showing more interest in any man than his own interest in her justified. And so she waited and watched, trying to dance always in the set nearest the stairway which led to the outer north entrance of the hall.

She was not particularly surprised when a small boy came up to her and whispered that a gentleman outside wished to speak to her for a moment.

"Oh," she murmured in her heart, "it must be John."

She threw a shawl around her in passing the dressing room, and followed the boy outside. She saw no one when she got in the deserted doorway and was about to turn around and go back to the hall, for the lane looked very dark and forbidding at that late hour.

Just as she turned, a man with a dark cloak enveloping his whole form stepped out from the east corner of the building and, with a low bow, said softly:

"Forgive me, Miss Tyler, but the sight of heaven tempted me to try and draw out the angel, if but for one moment. I am lonesome, a stranger, and full of longing for the acquaintance of a sweet woman, be she sister or friend."

Ellen recognized the voice of her soldier acquaintance, and she involuntarily shrank back from him.

"Do not shrink from me, dear, sweet, gentle spirit. I am but a lonely, unhappy man, so near to a paradise of laughter, love and music, and yet unable to partake of one single element of all the glory that I see. You remember, even the angels are not ashamed to pity."

Just then someone came into the lane from the sidewalk, and Ellen hurriedly moved away to enter the deep doorway. As she turned, she felt a note thrust into her hand and then she was once more inside the safe precincts of the lighted, noisy building, and she put the note deep down into her pocket for future reference.

When she once more made her way into the dancing hall, she was surprised to find John Stevens dancing on the floor, and with no less a person than her dear friend Diantha. She wondered how she had missed him, but reflected that he must have come in while she was in the dressing room hunting her shawl.

"He will soon come to me," she whispered to herself, and waited impatiently for that coming.

But he did not come. Diantha and he danced together the first time and the second and the third time, and as Ellen had refused to dance, and was sitting on the side benches, she could easily follow them as the couple moved through the mazes of the quadrille and reel. Diantha's cheeks were glowing, and her eyes looked like blazing stars in the azure blue, while her lips were like the red balls on the winter wild rose bushes. And Ellen's sharp eyes noted that Diantha was not now wearing Charlie's ring. What was happening? Dian floated round with a rhythmical grace that was always so witching an accomplishment of her queenly beauty. Ellen watched and listened. She was too shrewd not to detect some meaning beneath all this throbbing excitement, and she knew that there was more than the usual effort to fascinate, in the manner of her friend Dian.

As for John, he seemed almost another man. Talk about blazing eyes; his almost burned into flame as he kept his intense gaze fastened upon the uplifted glances of his companion. He said little; Ellen could see that; but his look and his manner as he came near his dancing partner betrayed his whole secret. It was for the first time, too, for never before had he received such open, such undisguised encouragement from the girl beside him.

"John never looked at me like that," whispered Ellen in her own heart, "never, never!"

The two dancers were so absorbed in each other that they gave no heed whatever to anyone about them, and so it came to pass that the brief space of time spent by John in that eventful ball was spent wholly in the society of Diantha.

Ellen's enjoyment was all over. She felt nothing but a thrill of jealous regret, mingled with a passionate wish for another love to prove to John Stevens that she, too, could be sought and she felt as well an intense desire for the love itself. She was such a tender, clinging nature, physical love to her was not an incident, it was life itself.

When she was safely at home she opened her note and by the light of her tallow candle, she read:

"My Dear Young Friend:

"I trust you will pardon the seeming forwardness of this letter. Yours is such a gentle, forgiving nature, that you can but excuse, especially when you know that the act is prompted by as deep an affection and as earnest an admiration as could be bestowed by the heart of a man. I am heartsick and alone. I find myself filled with a love which is as hopeless as it is passionate; will you not let me at least have the mournful pleasure of expressing that love, although I know too well its hopeless character? You are so good, so pure that it cannot hurt you to become the one star of peace in a stranger's dark horizon. I would offer you all the love, protection and devotion usual to my walk in life, if I knew that I dared.